


Rasure

by Prochytes



Category: Dark Matter (TV), Dollhouse
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five holds more than she did yesterday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rasure

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Dark Matter_ to 1x03, and for _Dollhouse_ to “Epitaph One”. Originally posted on LJ in 2015.

In the mess, at breakfast, Two suspected. Doubt swelled in slow crescendo through the day, The Android’s bridge reports blithely beating time ( _“The ship’s engines are operating within acceptable parameters…”_ ). But it was only in the evening, pulling off her gloves after a solitary workout, that she saw the slight shadow at the entrance to the training room, and seized her chance. 

“Five. Hi. I’ve been meaning to catch you alone. Do you have a moment?”

The girl shrugged. “A moment.” She padded to a position in front of Two at the centre of the room.

“I don’t often see you here.” (That had been one clue, among many. Five usually avoided the training room, after an early narrow squeak when she had bounced in during one of Four’s more testing katas. Five had retreated, mumbling that she preferred the haircut she already had. To the best of Two’s knowledge, this was the first time she had been back since.) “I think we have to talk, away from the guys. You know how trigger-happy we’ve all become about full disclosure.”

“Sure.” The raised chin, the level gaze, was also suggestive. It was true that a vein of cocky bravado ran through Five. Two remembered how she had faced down Three after stealing his ammo. But Two had never seen in her anything close to this confident calm.

“I’ve noticed the changes. The way you talk; the way you hold yourself. I’m fairly sure that ambidexterity isn’t something you can catch.” Two moved in, her motions deliberate and unhurried. Close enough to flip and pin if the girl tried to bolt. “We’re none of us the people we were last month. But I don’t think you’re the person you were yesterday.” 

The eyes that held her own were still untroubled. Two took a breath.

“I don’t know who you are. But you’re not Five.”

“Not Five.” The smile confirmed her fears. Two saw the shift in the girl’s balance, which was just as well. The roundhouse kick it heralded was ungodly fast.

Two abandoned the idea of holding back in the first half-second. She didn’t need Portia’s memory to suspect that she had never faced a foe like this. The girl fought with youthful speed and ancient guile: moves to which Two had no answer, moves where she could barely guess the dialect of the question. Her strength was spent on the stale recycled air. Two crumpled around the final kidney punch. She dropped to her knees, as the room carouselled around her. 

_Get up. Or lure her in, and fight from here. Down’s not out. They rely on me. Get u…_

A cold promise of sharpness at her throat. Damn Four and his massive fucking redundancy of bladed objects. 

“I thought it would clear the air to get that over with.” The girl smiled down at her from the far end of the sword. “Don’t get me wrong: you’re the most level-headed person on this little love-boat. But when you’re suspicious, or in a hurry, you default to punching.” She hefted the sword, absently executed the kind of filigreed flourish with it that Four would very much like you to think was quite unconscious, and replaced it on the rack. “I can relate. Bravo.”

“You already beat me.” There were times, as words passed her lips, when Two knew in her bones that someone who remembered Portia would say she sounded the same. It felt like a key finding its home in a well-worn lock. She hated it. “No need to be a dick about it.” 

“That wasn’t what I meant. Although, truth be told, I was impressed. You’re the first person in decades who’s even connected. I should install a patch to counter those elbow techniques.” Not-Five brought up a hand to her split lip, and inspected the blood on it. “But when I said ‘Bravo’, I meant it as a name.”

“My name is Two.”

“I know. But numbers can be confusing. When I was young, they would have used a phonetic alphabet instead. You’ve got to admit: there’d be advantages. Alpha, taking his shiny new conscience for a spin. Charlie with his guns; Delta with his swords. Foxtrot, who’s way too big to tango.” 

The girl hunkered down in front of the warily watching Two, and broke into another smile. This time, Two thought that she could see a sadness behind it, unless she was just that concussed.

“Echo.”

“What are you?” Two would have liked to be able to think that she was just asking this question to buy some time, regain some strength. But she knew that Six had been uncomfortably on the nose about how she was inclined to rationalize curiosity. “A child soldier? I wouldn’t put it past Ferrous to invest in those. But no one gets as good as you in fifteen years.”

“No one gets as good as me in fifteen lifetimes.” Not-Five – Echo? – sighed. “I’m not intrinsic to this body, Two. The Five you know is still in here as well. She’s taking a nap while her brain is running me.”

“You’re a program?”

“Not exactly. A composite, on-going neural event, founded on a hundred personalities. It’s easier for me to move around than it used to be. I can scuttle along the data-links of late-model spaceships like a spider. But it wouldn’t be healthy for Five if I stayed long, although her brain’s more compatible than most. I was only fully supported by my original hardware. That died on Earth when your grandmother’s grandmother was a girl. Even modern androids can’t quite hack it.”

“If you can go anywhere,” Two rubbed at her bruised forearm, “what brings you here?” 

“I heard a trap snapping shut. A trap that’s been a long time in the setting. Have you ever wondered why this ship is called the _Raza_?”

Two shrugged. “It’s just a name.”

“You and I both know that’s rarely so. ‘Raza’ is a corruption and a shortening, of a phrase they used on Earth, in the long ago. _Tabula rasa_ \- the wiped slate. Just a little too appropriate, don’t you think?” 

“That can’t be…”

“It is. Portia and the others boarded this ship without ever realizing that their sentence was written on the hull.”

Two looked at her sidelong. “You know what happened?”

“I do. Right now, it’s important that you don’t. The memories were taken for a reason. But I can tell you that this is big. Big enough for a remote wipe to have been triggered – tech that almost no one’s used in centuries. The signature from that was what woke me up, and made me come to find you. What I’ve been doing here… well, call it reconnaissance.”

“You’ve shown that I can’t make you,” Two flexed her shoulders, and winced, “so I’m asking. You need to give that body back to Five.”

“I will. This… intrusion is not a step that I ever take lightly. Five will wake up herself tomorrow, with vanilla memories of today.” Echo frowned. “The split lip’s going to need a bit of explaining, though. I didn’t expect you to be quite that good. And the overclocked muscles will hurt like hell in the morning.”

“I guess that you’d rather I didn’t share this little throw-down and heart-to-heart with the others.”

“You guess right. Three _is_ a bit of a Charlie, isn’t he?”

“Uh-huh.” Two clenched her teeth as she prodded another bruise. “I’ll say that the heavy bag smacked me when I was training. About twelve times. Will I see you again?”

Echo nodded. “I’ll be back to help when the time is right. I have every confidence that you and your crew will beat this. Like the girl that I’m psi-jacking said: you’re dangerous.”

“‘Dangerous’.” Two’s lips twisted. “I’m a grown woman less than one month old, herding four other gun-happy toddlers and a passive-aggressive android, who’s just lost a fistfight to a skinny child. You’ll pardon me if I don’t feel especially dangerous.”

Echo looked down at her appraisingly. After a long moment, she held out a hand. After another pause, Two accepted it. She clambered to her feet with as much grace as she could muster.

“Five likes stories. Do you mind if I leave you for now with one she doesn’t know?”

“Knock yourself out. I couldn’t.”

“Once upon a time, there was a woman. Her name was Caroline. She had vision, and the fatal gift of charm. Between the vision and the charm, and the fact that she was as reckless as all get out, Caroline got a lot of people hurt. In the end, she learnt a truth so terrible that she couldn’t be allowed to remember it. They hollowed her out, and she became a vessel for something new.” Echo cocked her head. “Do you think that Two is better than Portia Lin?”

 _Murder. Assault. Arson. Theft. Piracy._ “I know I am.”

“But still you feel like a cuckoo in her nest.” Echo nodded as Two bit her lip. “I thought so. Like I said before, I can relate. I made my peace with Caroline long ago. But there again, Caroline wasn’t a pirate.”

“What are you saying?” 

“Five was right. You six are the most dangerous thing in all the worlds. A second chance.”

Two held her gaze, and nodded. “Thank you. That’s… something I needed to hear.”

“You knew it yourself, really. I only ever say what others have said already. Once again, the clue’s in the name. The _tabula rasa_ is yours, Two.” Echo paused at the entrance, and looked back. “Write carefully.”

FINIS


End file.
